Bubble

I wake up from my usual night's sleep in order to go to the restroom. Don't recall my dreams. When I get back, I settle in, noting in my mind that this would be a good time for a lucid attempt, and then I allow myself to drift off.

One of the ways I initiate lucid dreaming is visualization. My particular mode is exploring an environment in my head, in detail. I know I'm entering the dream when the environment becomes easier to explore and more unpredictable. Sometimes there is a sense of "breaking the tension" and moving into lucidity. Sometimes it's more gentle. Sometimes I feel like things are still fuzzy and don't get the clarity I want. Like all lucid techniques, it's a mixed bag.

I grab onto the first location that drifts into my mind - an old apartment I used to live in. I am outside on the front lawn. I walk down the lawn and across the street and head for a stream that is on the other side of the complex. It is lined on either side by thick trees that were simply never knocked down by the developer.

When I reach the stream, I begin my explorations. I decide to do something I did there a lot as a child - look for rocks that would look good once they had been through a rock tumbler. I pick up a few rocks and examine them, but don't see anything I like. I continue walking down the stream, splashing my feet in the water.

The stream becomes larger and deeper. I have reached a part of the stream that no longer looks familiar. I note that my visualization has become more intense. I walk from the center of the stream to the bank on the side, which has become muddy. As I continue walking, the stream becomes deeper and more turbulent, and has cut deeper into the banks. The banks have gone from the soft dark brown of midwestern soil to a burnt sienna color, and are gaining more of a texture of clay. If anybody has been to Georgia, they may know the color of soil I'm talking about.

The stream has become closer to a river. I imagine that a "duck" style vehicle could probably float down it now. For some reason, a roller coaster is now running along the side of the bank, but it isn't full scale. I take note of it. I try to assess my dream state, but it still feels "thin". There's not really much clarity, and I feel like trying to exert direct influence right now may cause it to fall apart.

The roller coaster has disappeared. I now see a pristine snow drift and a snow-covered hill leading upward from the river bank. I decide to see where the snow leads.

I begin walking through the snowy area. The snow becomes deeper, and as I continue forward, I start having trouble walking through it. I am heading up a steep hill, struggling through the snow. I look up the hill, and realize it leads up a mountain. I look down and I can see the path I've made through the snow. The stream is nowhere in sight - I'm now on a mountain in a mountain range. This is the tallest mountain. It's daytime, and the sky is very blue against the sparkling white snow.

I decide to continue heading upward to see what is up there. The sky becomes darker. The snow is almost up to my chest, and the way up is still very steep. I have no climbing equipment, so I flounder and climb the best I can. At this point, I feel like I am "deep" enough in the dream to start changing things, but I'm genuinely curious as to where this all leads.

Upward, in the distance, wind is picking snow up off the drifts and driving it in swirls across the mountainside. Through the wind and snow, nestled under a massive overhang in the rock of the mountain, I see... a fortress? Castle? It's made of stone. There are no lights; even though it is aesthetically beautiful, in a cold way, all of the openings look defense-oriented - places for archers or people with spears. The only place I see a dim light is what I assume is the entrance.

I reach the door. There is a flat area of stone that forms sort of a "landing", a level area carved out of the rock and laid with decorative stonework. A large, wooden door leads to what I assume is the interior of the fortress. The aesthetic is quite Gothic (but think of something in the style of Rheinstein Castle, not something like Cologne Cathedral). There are lights on either sides of the door, but interestingly, they seem more like gaslights than torches. The wood is stained a warm brown color and the fittings look like they are made of bronze.

There is a lever to open the door in front of it. I ponder how that really isn't very, you know, secure, but I get the feeling that not everybody is actually able to pull it. Only certain people can. I pull it with no problem, though. The door opens.

I walk into a gallery with an extremely high ceiling. There are massive chandeliers lit with huge candles, I count about 8 of them, and each one looks like it is the size of a small room. They look a little... Victorian. The whole thing seems cathedral-esque, but when I examine the gallery, I see that there are actually walkways high up on either side where archers could perch. Anybody trying to march through here could be easily sniped.

I'm not sure what I'm expecting. There are 2 doors at the very end of the gallery. The one to the right is open, and in the room there is a small screen, and it seems to be a bedroom of some sort, which I think is kind of weird. Then I realize it's a place for guards to rest, where they could easily access the gallery, so this might be an area that also leads to barracks. I still think it's a really weird layout. I go through the door that is right in front of me, though.

It leads to a dark room with stone walls and outlets to a hallway on either side. I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this. The scenery still feels blurry and not 100% real, which is also a bit frustrating.

I walk through the door directly across me. I am in another room with high ceilings and a large chandelier. Things are getting blurry and kind of falling apart. The architecture is getting weird and I feel like it's getting "wrong". I begin to feel frustrated. I'm still trying to look for a throne room, or something, but I keep encountering weird rooms like this that just don't seem to fit the layout right. I'm looking for a dream character of any sort of significance, at this point, since I haven't really seen anybody.

There's another screen with someone behind it... I look around for a person. I'm actually looking around for what my dreamscape would consider to be the "leader" of this place, but instead, a woman who looks like a nanny appears. I don't know what small children she'd be minding, I assumed the ones of the head of the castle. At the time, I assumed there would be some, but now that I think about it there don't seem to be any. I think they might be around, but I don't see any. I should have talked to her, and asked what was up, but I didn't. I have an irritating tendency to stay silent during these dreams.

I can't get the DC I want to appear. I wake up.

The castle is cool, though. Once I've been to a dream-location, it seems like it can be a little easier getting there again (cottage is still hard, though). I wish I had spent more time examining individual parts of the fortress, rather than just pressing onward. If I end up there again, I probably will.